Gingrich Gets Glittered At Anti-Gay Minnesota Event

May 18, 2011 2:11 pm ET by Carlos Maza

2012 GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was showered with glitter by a local activist during a book
signing Tuesday night, just before the anti-gay Minnesota Family Council’s
(MFC) annual dinner in Minneapolis.

During the signing, Gingrich was approached by Nick
Espinosa, a 24-year-old Minnesotan, who
pulled a box full of glitter out of his bag and proceeded to empty it on top of
the GOP hopeful before being escorted out of the room:

Another
video of the confrontation shows Gingrich attempting to wipe away some of the
glitter and responding, “Nice to live in a
free country”:

While
speaking to ABC News, Espinosa explained his decision to target
Gingrich for the prank:

“Today, I invited Newt to feel the rainbow because he decided
to bring his anti-gay politics to my state,” Espinosa told ABC News Tuesday
night. “Newt has a long history of anti-gay politics and has chosen to focus on
divisive social issues instead of working to fix our economy. I don’t think a
free will adulterer like Newt has any ground to stand up while telling others
who they can and can’t love.”

[…]

“His playbook is one that we see across the board with
Republicans, focusing on divisive social issues like gay marriage that don’t do
anything to fix our economy and then proposing as a solution to our budget crisis,
cuts in social spending for the working families in Minnesota and across the
country, and I don’t think that’s the way to solve our budget crisis either.”

Gingrich’s
presence at a Minnesota Family Council event was also telling. The MFC is an
aggressively anti-gay group that has even gone so far as to claim that LGBT teens
commit suicide “because they’ve embraced an unhealthy sexual identity and
lifestyle.” As Tim Murphy at Mother Jones noted:

MFC president Tom Prichard argued in a post on
the group's blog that the recent spate of suicides by gay teen were tragic, but
also the natural consequence of an unhealthy and immoral lifestyle decision.
His post came after the death of Justin Aaberg, an openly gay 15-year-old
from the suburban Twin Cities area who hanged himself last summer -- one of three gay teens at his high school to
commit suicide in the past year. Aaberg's death was unfortunate, Prichard said,
but was being manipulated by the all-powerful gay lobby.

[…]

Another MFC-linked group, the Parents Action League
(which is headed by MFC researcher Barb Anderson), is involved in the
ex-gay movement. According to the Minnesota Independent, the
PAL has lobbied for schools to celebrate the Day of Truth, celebrating efforts
to turn gay people straight through prayer. Minnesota Family Council,
meanwhile, promotes the work of ex-gay ministries like Exodus International
and Healing for the Soul on its website. As
Right Wing Watch has noted, the MFC has deep connections to social
conservative leading lights, including David Barton, the Texas
pseudo-historian whom Bachmann invited to teach Congress about the
Constitution.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) also attended the MCF event,
which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Bachmann has previously admitted
to working “hand-in-hand” with a known anti-gay hate group, has called
living“the gay
and lesbian lifestyle... personal bondage,
personal despair, and personal enslavement,” and claims that God told her to introduce a constitutional amendment to ban
gay marriage in Minnesota.

When asked why he decided to use a prank in order to
protest Gingrich’s anti-gay stance, Espinosa told ABC News:

“It’s one of many tactics that can
be used to create social change. You’ve seen examples of pranks having a lot of
success recently,” Espinosa said. “Adding this bit of humor into the political
debate and I think it’s a really good way to get people’s attention when they
might not otherwise pay attention.”

[…]

“I think glitter’s fun. I think it
was a nice makeover for his campaign. And in fact if he needs anymore glitter,
I have some left over.”

If his goal was to draw attention to Gingrich’s anti-gay
politics, it’s probably fair to say “mission accomplished.”